by David Levien
Shipman fell silent.
“You want to work it out with your wife? Great. You want to break it off? Then that’s what you oughta do. You want to be her friend instead of the trainer? Give that a shot. Whatever it is, do it separate from all this.” Behr pulled the check out of his pocket. “This is the rest of your retainer. Buy her a present. Get away for a weekend. I’ve got to go.”
Behr slid behind the wheel. Another satisfied customer, he thought, dropping the car into gear.
Frank Behr stood at the reception station of Wishard Memorial Hospital’s emergency room and waited for the attendant to come available. Finally, the burly young man in a hospital-logo embroidered polo shirt hung up the telephone and swiveled his chair forward. He worked a grape Tootsie Pop around his mouth.
“Help you?” the man said, the sucker clicking against his teeth.
“Yeah, I’m interested in arrivals, either late last night or early this morning,” Behr began.
“What kind of arrivals?”
“Patients sporting certain types of injuries consistent with a fight. Specifically, dislocations-wrists, elbows, shoulders. Broken jaws. Even ankles or knees. Broken ribs.” Behr was aware that the laundry list sounded fairly ridiculous.
“That all?” the burly attendant asked. His female counterpart finished with some filing and, after listening to Behr, cocked a skeptical eyebrow at him.
“Heath, I’m going on a coffee run. You want any?” she asked.
“Get me one of them mocha javas, Carrie, would ya?”
“The iced ones?”
“Yeah.”
“You all right here?” she asked, looking Behr up and down.
“Yeah, we fine,” Heath said. She left and the man leaned forward on his elbows. “I can’t be releasing that kind of information to non-police personnel.”
Behr took out his wallet and flashed Heath his old replica shield.
“That’s just a three-quarter tin. Your uncle give it to you to beat speeding tickets?”
Behr had to smile. “Nah, it’s mine. I was on the job, now I’m private.” He let Heath see the license behind his tin-for what that was worth. He also slid a folded twenty-dollar bill across the desk. Heath swept it up, took a suck on his candy, and started pecking at a computer keyboard. After a moment he looked up.
“Yeah-hah, we admitted a dislocated knee last night… Oh-oh, says it was a motor vehicle accident.”
“Says it was a motor vehicle accident?” Behr wondered aloud. That’s probably what one would say, he figured. “Is there a police report?”
Heath clicked some keys and started nodding. “Yep. There is. Other driver was admitted too-steering wheel busted his sternum. Oh well.”
“That it?”
“Sorry, bro. Baby with a fever, heart attack, yada-yada-ya…”
“See you later,” Behr said.
“Yeah, funny papers,” Heath said to his back.
Behr spent the day having similar versions of the same conversation at the most likely half dozen other emergency rooms in the vicinity, from Community Hospital Anderson to Methodist, all the way up to St. Vincent. His wallet was $160 lighter for it, thanks to the fact that one sharpie behind a desk held out for a $40 “tip.”
Behr sat in the Steak ’N’ Shake on Arlington chowing down a steak burger, his late lunch/early dinner. Aurelio’s assailants either weren’t hurt, they were smart enough not to go for medical help in the area, or they were from somewhere else and had gone back there. Whatever the case, running around cloud-seeding for information was not something Behr was in a position to afford for very long, he realized. Especially with zero paying clients currently on the roster. He had wanted his mind to be clean and free to pursue this, but giving back Shipman’s retainer might have been a fiscal mistake. He pushed his basket plate away before he was done, leaving an edge of hunger, the way he did when he was on a case, when his cell phone rang and he checked the incoming number. It was Susan, calling from her home. She must’ve gone straight there after work. Behr took a pull of his soda and answered.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hey, Frank,” her voice came across the line.
“Hey back.”
“How are you?” she asked.
“I’m fine. You?”
“That’s funny, you sound kind of effed up.”
“Do I? Must be the connection.” There was a staticky silence. “Look, I’m sorry about before,” he said.
“Yeah, same,” she said back. It was easy enough to say, but the words changed absolutely nothing between them.
“So we’d talked about dinner and sleeping at my place,” she said, sounding hesitant. “We were gonna leave earlyish for Lake Monroe, remember? We still on for that?” she wondered.
“Yeah, no, I don’t think so…,” he began.
“No to all of it?” she asked, her back already starting to get up.
“Just the dinner and sleeping over part. I’ve got some stuff I’ve gotta run down tonight, and a quick thing early morning.”
“Fine,” she said, her voice tight.
“I could come by late night if-”
“No, thanks… I mean, just do what you need to do. I’ll go to sleep early and…” Her voice wavered between stiff and kind.
“But tomorrow we’ll go. You promised your office, right?”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, we’ll go.”
“I’m worried about you-”
“Don’t be. Look, I got another call coming in,” he said. “Just call me in the morning when-”
“Will do,” he said, and clicked off. He put the phone down and sat in silence. There was no other call.
Behr drove around burning some gas and thinking. He had zero interest in picnicking on a lake with people from Susan’s work tomorrow, but he’d said he would and that was that. He dialed the “D” and the “P” from Aurelio’s book. The first number yielded a recording that told him the number was not in service. The second wouldn’t go through, and as the number was missing an area code, Behr suspected it wasn’t local. He tried some Illinois and Michigan prefixes, but it wasn’t working. He dialed the number listed “F.” A voice mail picked up after four rings and pop music he didn’t recognize played for a few seconds as an outgoing message, then there was a beep.
“My name is Frank Behr, and I’m calling about Aurelio Santos. Please call me back…” He left his number and hung up. “CC” was Commerce Credit, a bank. The other two turned out to be jiu-jitsu students he hadn’t met. One mentioned the memorial service at noon on Sunday at the academy.
“I’ll be there,” Frank said and hung up, and then drove around until the streets began to glitter under the streetlights in the coming dark.
At about 7:45 he placed a call to his friend Jean Gannon at the coroner’s office.
“Jean? Frank Behr.”
“The bad news blues,” she sighed.
“How are ya-”
“What? Which? How much is it gonna cost me?”
“Santos, Aurelio. Late thirties, Brazilian. GSW to-”
“To what’s left of the face,” Jean jumped in. “I heard about it. Didn’t catch it though.”
“Damn. Any way for me to get a look?”
Breathing was all that came back across the line.
“C’mon, I’ll be your best friend.”
“Position’s not open.”
“I’ll buy you a year’s subscription to Cat Fancy-”
“Screw off, Behr. I’m divorced, not a dyke.”
“Ah, what’s the difference?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll let you know when I do.” There was a beat of silence. “Come around nine o’clock, night guys will be out at dinner.”
“I’ll bring you the usual-” But she’d hung up the phone.
TEN
Terry Schlegel warmed up with one eighty-five on the bench while T. Rex played in the back office of Rubber House. The clang of a socket wrench hitting the cement floor out in the ga
rage bay of the tire change and alignment shop reached him from time to time. After a dozen reps, he re-racked the bar, took a swig of water, and popped a creatine lozenge into his mouth. The shit tasted rancid, like sour orange chemicals, but he was all out of the flavorless powder version. He’d been drinking protein shakes for years to keep the muscle on his light-heavy’s frame, but when he’d passed forty-five he started to feel the need for some extra oomph. He’d never considered juicing though-nothing that would shrink his liver or his ’nads. No thank you. He’d never do anything to mess with his dick. That was an absolute rule. No Viagra, no Cialis, no MaxiDerm-none of that crap. So far there’d been no need, and he planned on keeping it that way. Maybe he was just being superstitious.
Terry added twenty-five-pound plates to the bar and thought about blood and business. It had been a busy time, and it was soon to be busier still. Then Marc Bolan’s voice slid in low and sly over crushed-down guitars.
“Well you’re dirty and sweet, clad in black don’t look back and I love you. You’re dirty and sweet, oh yeah…”
His mind naturally went to Vicky. It was a big song for them back when they started going out twenty-three years ago. An oldie already at the time, but big all the same. She was nineteen, only a few years younger than he was, but it seemed like a lot. She had a little slip of a body back then. The straps of her bra and panties cut white lines against her taut, flat skin, out in his car at what they all called “Penetration Park.” She was a bit more of a cruiser these days, but she still looked good, and after all the shit they’d been through and had beat-getting married and raising the boys and all-he felt a stirring even now. See, he thought, some things you just don’t mess with…
Terry took down his sets one after another, and getting close to done with the bench, he considered the squat rack and whether he should bang out a few. He rolled up his sweatpants and checked his leg. A fat bruise, purple and black, spread over his quad. Maybe he should wait another few days.
The boys. Shit, that thought was enough to take the starch out of him on its own. Raising three wild men, as he had, that was a tricky proposition. It had driven Vicky half to three-quarters crazy already, and they weren’t done yet. You try and look after ’em, shield ’em from the outside elements, he said to her, but they need their exposure too, in order not to turn out like all the other soft pukes around in this day and age. He rolled down the pant leg and loaded the curl bar for skull-crushers.
Kenny, the baby, with his black spiky hair and wiseass grin, would be in high school for another year-that is if he ever made it to class. Not that he seemed in any hurry to graduate on account of all the trim he wheeled out of there. The place was basically a poontang depot for the kid to dip into every week or so when it was time to refresh his stocks. Vicky had pretty much worn herself out yelling at Kenny about his skipping classes. Terry hadn’t gone in for that. Land war in Asia, was what he’d said to her on more than one occasion when she tried to enlist his help on the matter, just something unwinnable you don’t wanna engage in.
Then there was Deanie, the middle man, twenty years old already and always in need of a haircut, and Charlie, his big boy, more fair haired, like his mother, cock diesel at twenty-two, quiet and serious. Time was flying. Hell if it seemed they had any immediate plans to move out again. Why should they? They’d tried it when Deanie had graduated a few years back. They’d gotten a two-bedroom dung hole and filled it with secondhand furniture and beer parties before they realized there was a little thing called “rent,” and it wasn’t interested in waiting for hangovers to wear off before being paid. Terry’d had to go have a little chat with their landlord before the Ukrainian son of a bitch went and got the marshal involved with the eviction, so it turned out to be a short-term experiment for the boys.
Now? Room and board, butler and maid, butter and bread. The boys were pretty teed up, of this there was no doubt. Not that you’d know it from the funk Dean was walking around in. These bitches’ll drive you crazy if you let ’em, he’d told Dean-o a thousand times. But did Dean listen? Nope, he just kept moping around the house. And Charlie, the gang boss, he was strong as a Mack truck, even though he didn’t train much and just stayed in his room most days working the phone and laying plans for god knows what.
Terry didn’t mind. Truth was, he liked having them around where he could keep track of ’em. They were damn good boys. That’s why he was working so hard to build them a business. They were loyal to him, and they stuck together, even in the shit. Everyone knew the Schlegels were thick on the street and if you messed with one of them, you messed with them all. They kept him young and on fire too, the scrappy bastards. They forced him to stay lean and mean and one step ahead of them. Especially mean. That was his biggest edge these days.
He lay down on the bench and began pressing the curl bar up from his forehead, feeling the burn in his triceps, when the door to the main bay swung open, admitting a hot breeze along with the sound of pneumatic wrenches. He saw the upside-down image of Knute the Newt Bohgen filling the door frame.
“Look at you there, ripe for a tea-bagging,” Knute said.
“Try it, motherfucker,” Terry grunted between reps. “See what happens.”
“Don’t tease me.” Knute smiled. He found a stool and lit a cigarette.
“Open a window. Shit. I’m getting healthy, you’re taking me in the other direction.”
“Sorry.” Knute waved at the smoke and cracked the window a little, blowing out a drag.
“You could pick up a weight some time, you know. Wouldn’t kill you,” Terry said.
“Never know. It might,” Knute said. He sucked down another hit and fired his cigarette out the window.
“Probably would.” Terry dropped the bar with a crash. They slapped hands. “You hear something from Financial Gary?” Terry asked.
“Like you said, I didn’t come here for the workout…” Knute bumped his eyebrows and wiggled the partial he had standing in for the front teeth that went missing in a bar brawl long ago.
“And?” Terry asked, appraising his longtime partner. Knute was two years older than he, half a foot shorter, and forty pounds lighter, which would have made him a super lightweight. He had a droopy mustache and a pink scar on his cheek from his time in ISP in Michigan City, which was where the state sent you to disappear. Up there every trip out of the cell was a chance to get shanked, every visit to the yard an opportunity to be opened up. But Knute hadn’t died. Three years in, and now three months back. Those were long, lonely, unproductive years, for them both. A real shit time. But they were getting things back on track. They’d been real eager beavers since Knute’s return.
Knute took a scrap of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Terry, who looked it over. It had figures written all over it in no particular order, including one fat number that was double stroked and circled in felt pen.
“This?” Terry glanced up. Knute nodded. “Every month?”
“Yeah, but we have to have ’em all good and organized and under control. Not piecemeal. No holdouts. Not just the near Northside, but far Eastside and all the way through Speedway, too. Lot more heavy lifting to go-”
“As discussed. We’re on our way. We’ll have ’em all by winter, wrapped and ready to present to our buyer,” Terry said. He ripped up the scrap, wadded it, and tossed it in the garbage can. “Couple a bandy-bellied pirates gonna carve out a fortune is what we are…” Terry smiled. But Knute looked nervous.
ELEVEN
Behr arrived at the McCarty Street building that housed the coroner’s office and parked. He grabbed the paper bag holding what he’d had to drive around to three stores to find-a box of Lindt truffle chocolates and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red-and entered the building. It had become a routine between Behr and Jean Gannon over the years he’d known her. On her birthday, and Christmas, and whenever he needed a little access, he’d drop by and they would share a drink and a talk. At first it was just the whiskey, but then he’d seen the cand
ies on her desk one time and added them in, too. His name was at the front desk and he was allowed back to where Jean worked. The smell of formaldehyde and glutaraldehyde and other chemicals hung in the chill air.
“The candy man can,” he said, entering and waving the bag in front of him.
Jean looked up from her work. She’d put on weight since he’d last seen her and the glow of her computer screen was finding the lines on her face. Divorce wasn’t treating her too well, but then it usually didn’t.
“Frankie,” she said.
“Doctor…” Behr smiled, opening his arms.
Jean pushed away her keyboard and came around the desk. She skipped the hug for a squeeze of Behr’s forearm and grabbed the sack out of his hand. She glanced inside, then bunched the top of the bag and put it in her desk drawer.
“My spare tire thanks you,” she said.
“I’ll bring you a spirulina muffin next time, you want.”
“That’d be great. Better still would be if there is no next time.” Her tone was harsh, but they shared a smile and she waved him out of the office toward the exam rooms.
“I never asked you, why Johnnie Red?” Behr wondered as they went.
“Because I can’t afford Blue.”
“Course.”
“Nah, that’s not why. Way back when Greg and I were buying our first house we had this Chinese Realtor. At the closing, he gave us a bottle of it, because after a transaction the Chinese are supposed to give something red for luck. Been drinking it ever since.” They walked down a long corridor and Behr couldn’t tell if it was actually getting colder as they went or if it was his imagination.
“So you’re trying to stay lucky.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” she said.
They passed a tall, middle-aged man who nodded to Jean but didn’t give Behr a second glance, and then they entered one of the cutting rooms.
It was colder inside. Laid out on a slab beneath harsh surgical lights was Aurelio’s body. The thing that had made him him was now far away and would never be seen again. The body hadn’t been opened up, but the damage to his face had dried into a blackish purple mask. They hadn’t bothered topping him with a sheet.